


Code Name: Achilles

by Macdragon



Category: The Song of Achilles - Madeline Miller
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, M/M, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 12:22:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5456393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Macdragon/pseuds/Macdragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Patroclus and Achilles are fighting in a different kind of war. Secret agent AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Code Name: Achilles

**Author's Note:**

  * For [musicspeakstoo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/musicspeakstoo/gifts).



Our days are quiet now. The calm evenings are our own. At night I wake thinking of the still desert air, phantom coughing ringing in my ears, but the army is an ocean away and their sails won’t be turning homeward anytime soon.

We go to work in the morning, like normal people. Achilles to the office, where he’s an ordinary paper pusher, resigned from active duty. His neighbors in the cubicle farm don’t know who he is, or his connection to operations. Even if they did, they probably wouldn’t understand the tangled web tying them to the mission overseas. _Operation Troy_ is just words on letterhead to them.

I got a job in the medical center, treating minor injuries from workplace mishaps and training accidents. It’s easy, but after the trauma I witnessed in the field, that’s a relief.

Sometimes during lunch we walk out to the garden by the river. It’s quiet, peaceful. Achilles skips stones across the water, each one sending perfect ripples across the surface before sinking. He smiles, but in those practiced movements, I can read his restlessness.

It was his choice, I remind myself. He _wanted_ to step away from the field. But a spear can only be used as a walking stick for so long.

 

***

 

We met at the beginning of our service, at the agency’s top secret facility known only as Phthia. I was young, stupid, and terrified, and the sound of a boy’s head cracking as it hit pavement still haunted me. I had no idea what I was doing, but the agency had taken me in, erased my criminal record, and given me a new life, even if it was a life I didn’t feel like I fit into at all.

At mealtimes, the clattering of silverware and the chatter of the other new recruits drowned out my despair, but I still sat alone. The first day, one of the other men asked if I wanted to play cards. It startled me, and I shook my head, turning away. They left me alone after that.

During a break I escaped to the recreation room and found the boy with golden hair and green eyes reclining on a sofa, idly playing a violin. My heart lurched when I saw it. The instrument was familiar to me--my mother’s. They took it when I arrived because we weren’t supposed to have possessions, just the standard supplies to call our own.

He caught me staring. “It’s nice, isn’t it? My father gave it to me.”

In spite of my determination to stay quiet, I knew my surprise showed on my face. Disgust rolled through me. After taking my prized violin, they gave it to another recruit? “What’s your name?” he asked when I didn’t respond. “Patroclus,” I said. We all went by the names the agency had given us, the names we would go by in communications in the field. Our pasts didn’t matter, one thing I actually liked about Phthia.

He repeated my name, the syllables rolling smoothly in his mouth. “Patroclus...I am Achilles.”

The gears clicked into place. His father was our chief officer, the man called Peleus. I looked at him with a new curiosity. I’d heard rumors, we all had. That Achilles was the best fighter among us, set to lead his own missions someday. And I heard other things, that Achilles had been _created_ , not born, that his mother was one of the agency’s leading scientists. I felt a chill go down my spine.

He smiled, all teeth, not seeming to care about my reticence. “You’re new here, right? Welcome to Phthia.”

I tried to avoid him but then we were paired up for training in the shooting range. I had just been allowed to work with live firearms for the first time but he moved like he had been training with them for years. He held the gun like it was part of his body, shooting one round after another, each bullet hitting the stuffed dummies right in the heart.

“Who trained you?” I asked.

“No one,” he told me.

Something hot like contempt or admiration rose in me. “Let me try,” I said, holding my hands out.

“No.” He laughed, infuriating me.

“Let me do it.”

“Have you even shot a gun before?” He was smirking, as if I were an annoying but mildly amusing child.

I shook my head. He turned for a moment to switch on the safety, and I rushed him, my body colliding with his back. He swung around and I was on the ground before I knew what had happened. He didn’t even have to drop the gun; he held it in one hand, the other pinning me down.

The rumors were true. There was no one like Achilles.

 

***

 

A letter arrives from Briseis, an encoded message that seems to talk of shopping and parties but which really warns of the impending defeat of our agents. Achilles had known what he was leaving them to. Our agents are good, but not as good as him. Now that he’s gone, Briseis is the lead operative, reporting directly to Agamemnon.

 _The longer he does not fight, the more they will hate him,_ she writes.I show her message to Achilles, but he acts unmoved.

“It’s a Sunday,” he says. Days off are something new for us. “Let’s go to the harbor.” We ride our bikes and stand by the dock, watching the boats float by, sails drifting in the breeze. It’s a perfect afternoon, but Briseis’ letter left a bad taste in my mouth. Can we really steal time like this? 

 

***

Late one night, after Achilles and I had become friends, I was called to Thetis’ lair. She reigned over the science laboratory in the far reaches of the training facility. The hallways were dark, the fluorescent lights clicking on one by one as they sensed my movement.

I knocked and I heard the beeps and clicks of the seal unlocking before Thetis swung open the metal door. She was still dressed for work, in her white coat, her dark hair tied up in a neat bun. It was strange that she had called me to meet her here, and so late. Did she ever leave the lab? She smelled of antiseptic and her eyes were dark and grey like the cold metal instruments.

“You must be Patroclus.” Her voice sounded like she had just finished smoking a cigarette. She looked me up and down, and I nodded.

“Yes ma’am.”

I thought she wanted to speak to me but instead she stepped close, looking down at me with those eyes. She was taller than me and I felt like a little boy again in front of her. She sneered. “He will be a god.”  

Implied— _You are nothing._

“Do you understand?” she asked.

“Yes ma’am,” I repeated. She didn’t need to elaborate. The rumors, the truth—at the kernel of it all was the fact that Achilles was meant for greater things than I.  
“Good.” She smiled. “You will be dead soon enough.”

Her laughter followed me down the dim hallway as I found my way back to the room I shared with Achilles.

In our foolhardy youth, we ignored her, remaining friends, until one night in our shared dormitory I closed the space between us with a kiss.

 

***

For me, at least, our leisure time is marred by an undercurrent of stress, our agents in the field constantly on my mind. There was an airstrike, and I try not to think of how the flames must have burned in the night sky. I try not to think of how every one of them was someone I know—someone I knew.

I hadn’t been expecting Thetis to show up at my door. She steps inside, and I swear I catch a whiff of antiseptic and blood despite her street clothes. She looks around, her dark eyes taking in our small studio apartment, with the secondhand sofa and woven rug and dishes from breakfast still laid out. Measuring, judging. Achilles is out for a run, and I’m left alone with his mother.

“I have received a warning,” she says. Stopping by the bookshelf, she picks up a trinket, a statue of a fish. She studies it, then sets it down and turns to face me. “Hector is coming here. He wishes to meet with Achilles.”

 “Interesting,“ I say, waiting. For the first time I think I see her hesitate.

“I fear a trick,” she admits. “Tell him to be watchful.”

She does not want him to talk with Hector, I know that. But what if he is here for a treaty, to break the web of intrigue and bring peace? “I will,” I say, simply, not wanting her to guess at what I think.

Her eyes find mine, and she wrinkles her nose, the contempt returning to her expression as if the worry had never existed. “You are not worthy of him. You never have been.”

She leaves me with that, her presence remaining as a palpable unease in the apartment long after she has gone.

 

***

 

One day I woke and found Achilles gone. I thought he had just gone to breakfast before me, but when I arrived in the dining hall, he was missing. A twinge of unease settled in my gut. There were whispers around me, people staring. The gossip reached my ears. Achilles had been moved up to the next level of operations, to Pelion.

I ran outside, feeling trapped. I could hear the ocean crashing, and my heart pounding in my chest. I paced until nightfall and by the time the moon had risen, I had a plan.

My training at Phthia hadn’t been for nothing. I had picked up a few skills along the way. I hotwired a car in the garage and fled under cover of nightfall. The car would be tracked. I wasn’t sure how much time I had, but as I sped down the highway in the direction of the mountains, I knew I wouldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t try to reach Achilles.

 _What if he doesn’t want to see me_? The thought niggled at me, and I felt myself flush as I remembered the kiss again, and how he had run from me after that. I replayed the scene over and over in my mind.

I had to stop and get gas. I was on edge, and I thought I heard something behind me. Before I could turn around, there were arms around me. I froze, and then I heard his voice. “Patroclus.”

I relaxed into his embrace.

 “I hoped you would come,” he said. “Come, leave the car. We’ll take you to the mountains.”

 Around the back of the station, a grizzled man was standing with his arms crossed, leaning against a motorcycle. The fabled Chiron, one of the oldest agents in service. “We need to go,” he said, briskly, mounting the bike. Achilles took the second motorcycle, motioning for me to follow. I got on the bike behind him, my arms around his chest, and I didn’t let go until we were safe at Chiron’s mountain camp.  

 

***

 

The plan is my idea. I bring it up one day when we're at the pool, sitting side by side with our feet dangling in the water. The sounds of children screeching and the splashing from a group of college students playing Marco Polo easily covered my voice. "What if I meet with Hector? You can keep your honor, but we'll come to a deal and end this foolish battle."

He looks at me, that familiar smirk on his face, his eyes even greener under the fluorescent light. "I'm a legend." He states it as a matter of fact, not bragging. "He knows who I am."

I shrug. "Not really. They've never seen you up close. You're a legend, true, but the man of flesh and bone would be unrecognizable."

He shakes his head. "No." With that, he pushed off into the water, weaving as agile as a fish around the crowds of the public pool. 

Despite his blunt refusal, I wear him down over the next few weeks, reminding him of the idea whenever we have a quiet moment. Walking in the park. Over dinner. At night just before we doze off. Maybe he just gets annoyed with me, but finally he relents. After that he becomes my willing companion in the deceit, taking a wicked glee in our machinations. Although the ploy served to keep him uninvolved, he seems truly excited for the first time in months. I can see it in his eyes, his visions of Hector falling to our trick. Achilles loves a challenge.

The morning of my meeting with Hector, we act normal, eating a leisurely breakfast of oatmeal and figs. We go for a walk around the neighborhood. Reconnaissance, he says. I think he's just restless. Then, we're back at the apartment, and it's time. 

“Don’t fight him,” he tells me again, as I stand in our bedroom pulling on his designer suit. He steps in front of me, buttoning the white shirt and helping me into a crisp black blazer. He hands me my gun, and I put it in the holster at my belt, covering it with the jacket.

“I won’t use it,” I promise Achilles, smiling at him, the expression a mask for my anxiety.

He picks up the tie, the last piece of the outfit, and carefully fits it around my neck. He kisses me, takes my hand and walks me to the door.

 “Be careful,” he says.

“I will.”

There's more to say, but we do not say it. He lets go of my hand, and I step out the door.


End file.
